When travelling across nations or neighborhoods I revel in the long detour for the indelible delight. My willingness to wreck itineraries and rile companions for a nibble of potentially life-changing apple strudel partly explains my reputation amongst those who know me best as a deviant.
My friends should know I’m a changed man – still as Young and foolishly foodish as ever, only not so single-minded. What I’ve become is double-minded: I’ll still go the distance for a great strudel but I’m happier if there is also an incomparably good Kasekrainer close by. I’m hungry for the double score – the delicious discovery of not but two remarkable tastes within hopping distance of each other.
So rather than pinpoint the finest porchetta sandwich or name a caffè macchiato superior to all others I will instead obsess about the world’s best porchetta sandwich and caffè macchiato within 436 feet of each other. Oddly, they’re found not in Rome or Florence, but on East 7th Street in New York’s East Village (see map):
Porchetta is at 110 East 7th. Abraço Espresso is at 86 East 7th.
Porchetta is typically a salted whole or reassembled pig rubbed or rolled with garlic and herbs and roasted to a crisp over a wood fire. With this sandwich shop’s version I am can tell you some of how it’s made and more of how it eats. Chef-owner Sara Jenkins marbles pork loin with a green paste of sage, rosemary, wild fennel pollen and garlic, pads it in pork belly and slow-roasts the tied-up bundle. The succulent slices of roast pork that fill the thick sandwich glisten with fat and sparkle with flavor, their utter tenderness broken in the chewing by crisp shards of crackling almost too hard to gnaw. Somehow you manage, sadly polishing off the sandwich more quickly than expected. Then you walk 435 feet to…
Abraço is a tiny coffee bar cherished for its coffees and the sure-handed barista who prepares them, co-owner Jamie McCormick. (Partner Elizabeth Quijada also bakes superbly original pastries.) The fine-tuned caffè macchiato, like the other espresso-based drinks, is made from the Aficionado blend of Counter Culture Coffee.  As esteemed as that world-class North Carolina roaster is, the mop-haired McCormick’s caffeinated charisma surely has much to do with this sweet, rich espresso being so irresistible. I for one would never dream of passing by Abraço without stopping for a coffee and chat. If I was in a rush and needed to cross quickly from First to Second Avenues I’d rather walk one block up or down to a parallel street than risk insulting McCormick, not to mention my good taste.
And that would mark the first time in my life I had taken a detour to AVOID an indelible delight.
Venturing to East 7th (from the West side) seems a long way to go, but the picture of the sandwich does look good. Here’s a tip for the best schwarzbrot in Germany–Hamburg, any of the bakeries near the main railway station. And the best Thuringer sausage is supposedly in Weimar. I’ll go there tomorrow and find out.
I think I have something similar in London with the Bospherous Sish Kofte on Old Brompton Rd and Odonno’s Sicilian Pistachio Gelato less than 150 metres away on Bute St.
I also like the gastronomic link between Turkey and Sicily !
@robertolov “Any” of the bakeries near the Hauptbahnhof? Must I try them all? Please let us know what you find in Weimar.
@gastro1 I know Oddono’s Gelati but have never tried Bosphorous Kebabs. I am tickled to get the tip and also delighted to see they are just 116 meters apart. A Jamaican sprinter could cover that distance in 12 seconds if he’d not had a sis kofte beforehand, perhaps in 12 minutes if he’d stopped for a few skewers first.